Johnston Archie

Archie Johnston 

 

Archie Johnston was a journalist from the mid-30s until the 1950s, who came originally from Aberdeen.

 

When the Spanish Civil War started, he owned a hotel with his wife at Lloret de Mar but became involved with the Republican cause as a journalist based in Barcelona until the fall of the city in December 1938. Seemingly, he was making a radio broadcast at the time and just escaped over the Pyrennes with his wife. 

 

Sam Lesser remembered him slightly from his time in 1937-8 in Barcelona.

 

Archie produced a memoir, entitled ‘In the Name of Peace’, published in 

1952.

 

Having worked for various Socialist newspapers in the 1930s, he finally left the News Chronicle in 1947 to be appointed editor of ‘The British Ally’ in Moscow. From this episode came his book “Ivan the not-so-terrible”, (published in 1956. This described his life in the USSR.

 

Source: Information supplied by Mike Arnott to Michael Walker

 

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